Use of Data Collection Systems
Is Up Sharply Following 9/11

In the 20 months since Sept. 11, 2001, little-known government and commercial
databases that track the movements and backgrounds of everyday Americans
have steadily ballooned.

Developed as counterterrorism tools, the systems are aimed at bridging gaps
in information that let the 9/11 hijackers slip past law enforcement. But
they also make it easier for the government to gather information about American
citizens who aren't suspected of anything criminal.

Public attention has focused almost entirely on two "data-mining" projects
that have drawn objections from privacy advocates: a new airline-passenger
profiling system known as Capps, intended to block suspected terrorists from
flying, and the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program, aimed at
detecting patterns of terrorist activity. Concerns about Total Information
Awareness flared again this week, when the Pentagon said it had renamed the
initiative Terrorist
Information Awareness but still outlined plans to use vast amounts of
government and commercial data on U.S. citizens to sniff out suspicious activity.

While debates rage about these two programs, though, myriad other government
agencies and private companies are building similar kinds of massive, easily
searched databases on a broad range of people, all in the name of the war
on terror. The emerging systems link databases that didn't communicate
previously, mixing public records, such as indictments and prosecutions,
with intelligence based largely on investigators' hunches.

The idea is to use sophisticated software to "see things that a human being
can't possibly see," says Steve McCraw, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
assistant director in the agency's office of intelligence. "We collect such
voluminous amounts of data that we need to be able to find previously unknown
links, relationships and associations hidden within our own data."

But critics say the more information of varying credibility is amassed in
one place, the greater the risk of overloading investigators with irrelevant
leads that cast needless suspicion on innocent people. "What we're talking
about here is unverified information and not necessarily very accurate
information," says James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy
and Technology, an online policy group in Washington.

Some examples of what's in the works:

 The FBI is working with outside
contractors to build an unprecedented "data mart." By importing data from
other federal agencies and linking to local police intelligence databases,
the Terrorism
and Intelligence Data Information Sharing Data Mart will get instant
access to a broad range of people. "Text-mining" software will then scan
for common elements in more than a billion documents from FBI field offices
across the country.

 An FBI database called
the
Violent
Gang and Terrorist Organization File is expanding rapidly. When it was
launched in 1995, VGTOF was mainly used to track violent urban street gangs.
Early last year, its purpose was quietly expanded to include all subjects
of FBI domestic or international terrorist investigations. A February 2002
memo citing the 2002 Winter Olympics shows how the FBI's definition of potential
terrorists has broadened: It encompasses such categories as "anarchists,"
"militia," "white supremacist," "black extremist," "animal rights extremist,"
"environmental extremist," "radical Islamic extremist" and "European origin
extremist."

Because police even check VGTOF at traffic stops -- and it includes suspects
with no criminal record -- inclusion in the database is supposed to be limited
to people who pose a significant threat, says Roy Weise, senior adviser to
the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division. But the terrorism
listings now include more than 7,000 names, alongside the tens of thousands
of gang members.

 Police intelligence files are
being shared more widely. In a pilot project, several police agencies in
the St. Louis region are combining their files with the FBI's into a single
database. And a police intelligence network called
Rissnet
has emerged as a national bulletin board for police to post information about
people suspected, but not necessarily convicted, of criminal activity. Since
October, the Justice Department has been connecting Rissnet to other networks
so that information on people of interest to local law enforcement -- including
protest groups suspected of crimes, motorcycle gangs and members of organized
crime -- can be cross-checked by federal investigators.

The degree to which there are mistakes in such systems isn't known. The public
can't browse most of these databases. Challenging one's inclusion is hard,
because most agencies won't confirm that individuals are on a watch list.
And privacy laws contain many exemptions for national security.

Examples of how local police records can live on in federal databases are
surfacing in Denver, where the police department recently released documents
in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. They show
the police intelligence unit had secretly built a computer database full
of personal details about people active in political groups. Included were
a Quaker peace-advocacy group called the American Friends Service Committee
and right-wing causes such as the pro-gun lobby.

The Denver department is purging people not suspected of a crime from the
records. But last summer, when a man listed in the Denver files as a gun-rights
group member got into a fender bender, a police officer checking VGTOF found
him described as "a member of a terrorist organization" and part of a "militia."
According to a Denver police memo, the officer reported the stop to the FBI
as a "terrorist contact." The Denver police and the FBI decline to comment
on how the man ended up in VGTOF.

Despite the reach of such databases, there are still obstacles to making
them as powerful as the government wishes -- or as opponents fear. A General
Accounting Office report last month cited incompatible computer languages
and operating systems as a hurdle to merging dozens of watch lists kept by
various agencies.

Still, there's no question that data banks and the potential for linkages
are growing. The Department of Homeland Security is collecting passenger
manifests from airlines and cruise lines for every international trip to
and from the U.S. It puts information about U.S. citizens traveling abroad
into easily searchable form for the first time.

Commercial databases are also compiling data from as many sources as they
can find. Regulatory DataCorp
International was set up by a consortium of banks to comply with Patriot
Act requirements forbidding transactions with terrorists. It has gathered
lists of arms dealers, people mentioned in the media as being under investigation
or indictment, people sanctioned by regulators, and foreign rulers and their
aides, friends and families. "We have a database of 1.5 million names and
growing," says CEO Bill Catucci.